Boonen by the numbers..

mises

Here are your goals for 2006 from Bicisport:

Height 1.92 meters
weight 84kg

Test Massimale (apparently 8 minute steps):
max power 520 watt
max hr 193 (197 in a race)
watts per kg 6
lactate capacity 9.3 Mmmol

Test alla Soglia (presumably 1hr):
power 430 watts
hr 176
5 watts/kg
lactate 4.0 Mmol

Max 5 second power:
1520 watts (53x13)
cadence 114

No plans to drop some weight a la Petacchi to improve his climbing.

6 days prior to the Worlds his training day was 50 km motorpacing to a 150km kermesse followed by 70km motorpacing back home. Total 270 km, roughly the same as the worlds. That specificity thing must be worth something.

robkit

what is the source of this. is it reliable?

__________________
I am my favorite rider.

mises

From an article in the Italian magazine Bicisport. I can't recall the doctor's name that was involved. It seems pretty reasonable to me, not like most of the numbers thrown around where every climber is reported to be 7 watts/kg for an hour and they get dropped on the first big climb.

Cyclingboy

5 watts/kg seems low to me since I am able to produce 5.09 watts/kg on my treshold (4 moll) and I am only 15 years old.
My weight is 53 kg and I am 1.70m

peterpen

If you're able to sustain this for an hour, give Patrick Lefevre a ring - he might have a job for you.

mises

With your height and weight you'll certainly be a better climber than Tom ever could be, but to match him on the cobbles you are going to have to get to 8.1 watts/kg! (430W/53kg)

If you hit that you won't need to make any calls, they will be at your door offering all sorts of unusual perks.

robkit

its true, watts/kilo is a good standard and obviously matters on the climbs, as well as for acellerations (and that could mean sprinting) - BUT when it comes to road racing and especially time trialling on relatvely flat courses, might as well forget about the kilo part and just worry about watts.

these numbers sound realistic, i was just surpirised that they would be so readily published.

__________________
I am my favorite rider.

peterwright

He would not have to put out 430w to stay with Tom due to his lower weight - his wattage would be significantly lower to match Tom's speed.

whoawhoa

Weight makes very, very little difference when not climbing. However, he would likely be a little more aerodynamic than Boonen.

peterwright

If you compared the power necessary to maintain say 40kmh of a rider of Boonens weight to a rider wieghing 53kg maintaining the same speed the two numbers would be significantly different.

No rider can sustain +8w/kg and many smaller riders can hold onto the pace of a bigger and stronger rider on a flat road. Weight is very relevant in determining what power output a rider needs to maintain for a given speed - flat road or not.

Given - that the more the road climbs the more weight becomes a factor but on flat roads it still has a significant bearing.

whoawhoa

The two numbers would not be significantly different. Try analyticcycling.com

Using a flat road with the given atmospheric conditions and rolling resitance, a cda of .315, and a weight of 63 kg rider +bike for rider 1 I get 292 watts to go 40kmh.
Using the same conditions but a rider+bike weight of 92 kg, I get 304 watts.
If we take into account that a smaller rider will generally more aerodynamic, I dropped the cda of rider 1 to .28 and get 275 watts at 40khm. Hardly large differences.

Smaller riders can often hang onto the pace of bigger riders in a pack, at a hugely reduced workload due to drafting. Not many 55kg riders have won Paris-Roubaix, Flanders, or big tts because these require efforts on the flat without such a draft benefit.

bikeguy

The numbers look about right to me. I would point out to cyclingboy that it's absolute power over many hours output that matters more in a long or multi-stage race along with the ability to put out high power outputs for short periods of time during breakaways or hill climbs. The riders in a pack are more or less coasting at low power outputs most of the time, but hammer from time to time in surges and up hills or long climbs. Very few cyclists can sustain 430 watts for an hour (Boardman's sustained power output for his hour record was 442 watts, and it is acknowledged that Boardman had one of the highest 1hr power/wght ratios ever) however Boonen can hold 430 watts and has sprint ability of 1500 w for 5 seconds, which he can probably come close to even at the end of a 200 km race. Boonen is probably a better road cyclist then Boardman ever was, although for TT's Boardman was great.

Another point. The 4 mmol/liter cutoff doesn't necessarily mean you can hold that power output for an hour. I had a VO2 max test done last year and my 4 mmol/L power was recorded at 262 w, but at that point I couldn't hold 262 watts for 25 minutes. Now, I can hold about 315 w for an hour and I've lost another 2 kilos. In the next couple of weeks I'll have another VO2 max test done.

For climbing though, over 5 watts/kg for an hour is a very good figure.

-Bikeguy

mises

That's why I said on the cobbles - since it's difficult to maintain a good draft on them and a light rider gets bounced around so much they couldn't stay on a wheel anyway.

Aerodynamics would certainly lower the number but would involve a lot of assumptions and the point was just that watts/kg is not the end all of cycling, though it's pretty close to that in the mountains.

tuney

Interesting Figures eh!

Not as huge as you would expect! I bet a few people here can getclose/beat those figures(especially the relative ones)!

One thing, like someoneone else mentioned, is that Boooonen can probably ride close to these figures after 5 hours. And of course his mental and technical abilities are excellent.